Day 9 - back to England

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Last night we had a lovely dinner in the dining room of the castle we were staying in. Don finally got to try some some lamb. I had the cod because it was the lightest thing on the menu.

We ordered an old fashioned as our pre-dinner cocktail which stumped both the waitress and the bartender. The bartender did do her research and looked up what would be the best whiskey - and landed on a peaty scotch. It was very odd (if she hadn’t come over to explain the research she did we might have sent it back) and it was a lesson to us not to order old fashioneds in Scotland.

This morning, after a lovely breakfast we set off walking to the village of Portmeirion. This well-known tourist area completely flummoxed us. It had a bit of a Disney tourist area feel with gorgeous, pastel buildings. But that’s where the resemblance ended. There was a ton of outdoor seating - but no food places were open except one small coffee shop. There were only three shops in the village. One was an art gallery, one was a lovely kitchen type store and the other was paraphernalia from the TV show The Prisoner - which seemed to be filmed there. I had been worried we wouldn’t have time to see it all - but i shouldn’t have stressed. Even with the walk back, we were on the road an hour earlier than expected.

We drove straight to Liverpool. It wasn’t entirely clear when we left Wales and entered England - there wasn’t a sign. But we did notice that the road signs stopped being in Welsh as well as English at some point.

When we got to our hotel, which is themed after the Titanic (and according to our cabbie is the second best hotel in Liverpool) our room wasn’t ready so we caught a cab to the Beatles museum. Not the official one mind you but the one Pete Best (one of the original Beatles) and his family created to display all the stuff collected over the years. Hmmm.

We did realize our error and caught another cab to the official Beatles’ Story Museum. We spent an hour or so wandering around and learning about the Fab 4. Plus Pete.

After that we wandered the Albert Dock and found a pub in the water. We did a stroll through some of the pedestrian area of downtown until we caught a cab back to the hotel where we have a huge, if sparsely furnished room. It’s very warehouse like and has drawings of the Titanic around the space. But it should be really comfortable for the night. First place we’ve stayed with two sinks!

Don is wrapping up some work and then we’ll go downstairs for dinner. Another 7.5 km today!

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